{"id":322383,"date":"2025-12-02T08:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T08:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/322383\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T08:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T08:45:09","slug":"mets-sign-devin-williams-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/322383\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets Sign Devin Williams – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another free agent reliever has come off the board. The Mets are reportedly in agreement with Devin Williams<\/a> on a three-year deal that guarantees the Klutch Sports client $51MM, though the net present value is knocked down by $15MM in deferrals.<\/p>\n

Williams receives a $6MM signing bonus that\u2019ll be paid in $2MM installments. He receives $15MM annual salaries, $5MM of which is deferred each season. (Signing bonuses are paid even in the event of a work stoppage, while players would not receive salaries for any games lost to a 2027 lockout.) There\u2019s also reportedly a $1MM assignment bonus in the event of a trade.<\/p>\n

A second-round pick by the Brewers in 2013, Williams took a while to climb through the minor leagues as a starting pitcher. He took off after being moved to the bullpen in 2019, climbing from Double-A to the big leagues by the end of that season. Williams emerged as one of the sport\u2019s best late-game weapons by his first full big league season. He turned in a 0.33 ERA across 27 innings during the shortened 2020 schedule and claimed the National League Rookie and Reliever of the Year Awards.<\/p>\n

The righty continued to dominate over the next few seasons, forming a lethal back-end duo with Josh Hader<\/a>. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns had a front row seat as Milwaukee\u2019s front office leader for most of that tenure. Williams stepped into the ninth inning when Milwaukee sent Hader to San Diego at the \u201922 deadline. He reeled off 36 saves in 40 tries with a 1.53 ERA to win his second career Reliever of the Year honors a year later.<\/p>\n

Over his first four full seasons, Williams pitched to a 1.75 ERA while striking out 40.5% of opposing hitters. Heading into 2024, there was a decent argument for him as the best reliever in MLB. He hit his first real setback that Spring Training, as testing revealed two stress fractures in his back. He didn\u2019t make his season debut until shortly before the trade deadline. Williams looked every bit as dominant during the regular season, reeling off 21 2\/3 frames of three-run ball with 38 strikeouts to finish the year. His season ended in heartbreak fashion, as he surrendered a go-ahead homer to Pete Alonso<\/a> in the final game of the Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That wound up being Williams\u2019 final action in a Milwaukee uniform. Before his last year of arbitration, the Brewers flipped him to the Yankees for starter Nestor Cortes<\/a> and rookie infielder Caleb Durbin<\/a>. The Yankees felt they were acquiring one of the ten best relievers in the sport. Williams\u2019 results, at least, didn\u2019t come close to those expectations.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old righty had an inconsistent lone season in the Bronx. He was terrible early on, giving up multiple runs in three of his first 10 appearances. Consecutive poor outings at the end of April led the Yankees to move him to a setup role and put Luke Weaver<\/a> back into the ninth inning. Williams had one more rough appearance in early May before settling into a groove over the next few weeks. He returned to closing when Weaver landed on the injured list at the beginning of June.<\/p>\n

Williams was lights out from that point through the All-Star Break. He gave up runs in seven of his first nine appearances of the second half, though, and the Yankees pushed him out of the closer role for good when they acquired\u00a0David Bednar<\/a> at the trade deadline. Williams posted a 5.06 ERA in the second half despite striking out nearly 40% of batters faced \u2014 the second-best rate among qualified relievers behind\u00a0Mason Miller<\/a>. He worked in a setup capacity late in the season and into the playoffs. Williams tossed four scoreless frames with four strikeouts in the postseason.<\/p>\n

The end result was a career-worst 4.79 earned run average over 67 appearances. The Mets are placing a decent sized bet that the poor run prevention was a fluke. Opponents had a .339 batting average on balls in play when runners were on base. That\u2019s easily the highest mark in Williams\u2019 career (aside from his brief 2019 debut). He had a very difficult time stranding runners as a result. While relievers certainly need to be able to work out of tough situations, that had never previously been an issue.<\/p>\n

Batted ball metrics can be volatile, especially for relievers who only throw 60-70 innings in a season. Williams\u2019 stuff still grades out extremely well, and he remains capable of missing bats at a level that few other pitchers can match. He struck out 34.7% of opponents behind a 16.8% swinging strike rate. Those are down slightly from his usual marks but remain among the best in MLB. Among relievers with 50+ innings, Williams finished eighth in strikeout rate and 10th in whiffs.<\/p>\n

Williams has two pitches which he has used at roughly equal rates over the past couple seasons. His fastball sits around 94 MPH and while it\u2019s a good pitch, his standout offering is his unique \u201cAirbender\u201d screwball\/changeup. The pitch still moves unlike any other changeup in the league, and opponents have hit below .200 against it in every full season of his career.<\/p>\n

The underlying numbers made Williams a popular \u201cbuy-low\u201d target among teams and fanbases. That is borne out in the contract to an extent. Williams might have been in the running for a $100MM deal had he posted another sub-2.00 ERA season. It didn\u2019t force him to settle for a pillow contract, as he\u2019s still being paid as a high-end reliever. Williams falls well short of the four years and $72MM which Tanner Scott<\/a> commanded last winter, but he\u2019s within the $46-58MM range in which closers Robert Suarez<\/a>,\u00a0Liam Hendriks<\/a> and\u00a0Raisel Iglesias<\/a> have found themselves over the past few offseasons. He came up shy of the four years and $68MM which MLBTR had predicted<\/a> in ranking him the second-best reliever in the class.<\/p>\n

While an ugly walk year ERA still has some impact on a pitcher\u2019s market, Williams is the third example this offseason of teams placing a decent amount of emphasis on stuff and whiffs in spite of that.\u00a0Dylan Cease<\/a> commanded a seven-year deal from the Blue Jays coming off a 4.55 ERA over 32 starts. Ryan Helsley<\/a> pulled $14MM annually from the Orioles on a two-year contract with an opt-out despite a brutal finish to his 2025 season with the Mets. It\u2019s easier for clubs to place that kind of bet on pitchers coming from a different team. The Mets were never likely to bring back Helsley, and while the Yankees reportedly kept in contact with Williams\u2019 camp, they also opted not to issue him a $22.025MM qualifying offer that probably would have kept him around on a one-year deal.<\/p>\n

The Mets obviously don\u2019t feel that Williams is incapable of succeeding in New York. He\u2019ll slot into a key late-inning role in Carlos Mendoza\u2019s bullpen. He projects as the closer for now but could slide back into a setup capacity if the Mets bring back\u00a0Edwin D\u00edaz<\/a>, which they\u2019re reportedly still considering<\/a>. If the Mets allow their longtime closer to walk, they\u2019ll need to bring in multiple right-handed setup arms to bridge the gap to Williams in the ninth.<\/p>\n

RosterResource<\/a> projects the Mets\u2019 2026 payroll and luxury tax commitments in the $277-280MM range. They\u2019re likely to end up beyond the $304MM final surcharge threshold by the time they address the rotation, bullpen, and\/or first base and the corner outfield. The estimate from FanGraphs currently has them in the second tier of penalization \u2014 just below the $284MM cutoff for Tier 3. They\u2019re taxed at a 62% rate for spending between $264MM and $284MM, so the Williams signing comes with an approximate $8-10MM tax hit depending on the calculation of the net present value. They\u2019ll pay a 95% tax on spending between $284MM and $304MM and a 110% bill on any money beyond $304MM.<\/p>\n

Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a> reported that the Mets and Williams had agreed to a three-year deal. ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a> noted that the guarantee was above $50MM, while Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a> had the salary\/bonus\/deferral breakdown. The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal<\/a> was first on the assignment bonus.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another free agent reliever has come off the board. The Mets are reportedly in agreement with Devin Williams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,33147,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-322383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-devin-williams","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}